Washington Jeanne: Will Shaheen face her state?

Immediately after she voted against highly controversial gun-control legislation in April, Sen. Kelly Ayotte returned to New Hampshire and held a series of town hall meetings. She knew the meetings would be packed with gun-control activists who would ask her tough questions about her vote and probably yell at her (and they were). She held them anyway.

In fact, since Ayotte took office in January of 2011, she has held 21 town hall meetings, by her office's official count. That's 21 meetings in 35 months, an average of one every 1.6 months. By contrast, since Sen. Jeanne Shaheen took office in January of 2009, she has held seven town hall meetings, by her office's official count. That's seven meetings in 59 months, an average of one every 8.4 months. At her current rate, Shaheen would have to stay in office for three terms just to hold as many town hall meetings as Ayotte has held in less than half a term. Last week, Republican Karen Testerman, who aspires to win the seat Shaheen holds, challenged Shaheen to hold a town hall meeting on Obamacare. As Testerman noted (and we have pointed out before), Shaheen voted for Obamacare and voted against a 2010 Republican proposal to allow people to keep their health insurance if they liked it. Shaheen also repeated the White House talking point that everyone who liked their insurance could keep it. In fact, her publicly stated opinions on Obamacare are, with one exception, indistinguishable from those of the Obama administration, whose talking points she loyally recites.

Now that Granite Staters have learned the truth about Obamacare, which is vastly different than what Shaheen told them, they deserve some answers from their senator. The least she could do is hold a town hall meeting to explain to voters why she continues to support this debacle of a law.